Chapter 74: Dungeon Dive, part 3

As Leppie got to work bandaging Alcar’s wounded arm, Ubund had already begun prodding at one of the statues; the one representing the sun god Fanatos. It depicted a tall man with a winged helmet.

“I hear he’s a real favorite of the Emperor,” said Etienne, pointing at the god statue with his thumb.

And when Alcar looked puzzled, the halfling added, “The sun god, I mean. Emperor Arthric seems to view himself as the chosen one of Fanatos, and as the god’s mouthpiece, too.”

“Huh,” said Alcar.

“Yep,” Etienne continued. “I hear they have an enormous golden statue in Grand Imperial Square in the capital, showing Fanatos and Emperor Arthric standing hand-in-hand upon a platform that is supported at each corner by one of the other four great gods.”

Leppie scowled, and then shook her head. “It’s disgusting. The greater gods work in unison. It’s blasphemy for Arthric to focus on one god and neglect the others, never mind to put himself up there alongside them.”

Etienne raised his eyebrows, then made a clicking noise with his mouth. “But don’t you focus on Hernvall over the others?” he asked. Then he winked at Alcar.

Leppie’s scowl deepened, and having finished her work on Alcar’s wound, she now took a threatening step towards the halfling. “Don’t joke about such things, thief! I am a devout woman. Hernvall is of course the god that governs the powers of healing and the oceans, and as such, of course my guild look to his assistance, as do sailors. But that is totally a different matter. Neglecting the other gods, well – it’s blasphemy.”

“Kinda splitting hairs if you ask me,” murmured Etienne, causing Leppie to take another angry stride towards him.

But Olynka then moved between the pair with a smile. “Okay, Lepp,” she said. “Relax. Besides, surely it doesn’t matter much what the Varians believe? They are our enemies.”

“Yeah,” added Alcar. “Let the Emperor have his weird obsessions. I don’t care any more than I care what nightclothes he sleeps in.”

“I don’t know,” replied Leppie grimly. But she stepped away from Etienne, returning to Ubund’s side. “Anything that Emperor Arthric does seems to lead to conflict and suffering,” she said, a grim and serious look upon her face. “It’s in his nature. So perhaps we should care.”

Alcar looked to Ubund, half-expecting the vep-te to offer another perspective, but instead the guide gave a frustrated growl and shook his head.

“Whats up, man?” asked Etienne.

Ubund sniffed, staring angrily at the statues. “There is a secret door, and we need to open it,” he said, gesturing with one hand, ”I’ve seen it before, but...” He shrugged. “Something changed.”

“Well, what... what is supposed to happen?” asked Alcar. He stepped closer to the five statues, with Brutus close by. The dog began to sniff their stone feet, and Alcar wondered in passing if perhaps other dogs had marked their territory upon each gods’s stony robes.

“The statue heads turn,” added the guide sourly.

“He means to say that the head of each god can be twisted to face in different directions,” explained Leppie, starting to circle the statues herself.

“Huh,” said Alcar, reaching up to prod at the head of the nearest statue to him, Forox, the god of technology, who stood in the center of the cluster. The god had an elven look to him, with long hair in a braid down his back, and was portrayed a being dressed in an apron.

Leppie continued: “On our way, Ubund told me that when he passed through here before, one of his former companions rotated the head of Guthram, and then the secret door appeared. But today, nothing, it seems.”

“Perhaps it’s just stuck?” suggested Etienne, moving forward to the statue of Guthram, and looking up.

“Or maybe you just need to try a different statue,” suggested Olynka, moving closer to the statue of Anthema, a woman depicted with lizard-like scales, elaborately layered robes, and a dagger in each hand. “The mechanism – perhaps there is a secret order to moving each statue. Maybe the mechanism even changes every time the door is opened.” She reached up, and rotated Anthema’s stone head so that it faced towards the entrance.

“Maybe,” replied Ubund. The guide now stepped away from the statues, and Leppie moved back to his side.

“Yeah, I think perhaps Olynka’s got it right,” said Alcar brightly.

“But we can’t just keep turning them,” said Etienne, stepping back and looking from one statue to the next. “There must be a secret to it – a way of working out the puzzle.”

“I mean... maybe we need to just slowly rotate the Guthram statue until it’s facing the right way,” said Alcar, moving over to that particular statue and starting to turn it.

“Yeah – and get the other ones back to how they were at the start,” added Etienne. “We’ve probably scrambled them up by now. I wish there was some kind of reset button.”

Olynka glanced around at Ubund, who was now standing with his arms folded. “Ubund, when you were here before, do you remember which way the other statues’ heads were turned?”

Ubund grunted, and shook his head.

“Then can we face them all towards the hidden entrance?” asked Alcar. “It’s probably meant to symbolize divine assistance.”

“And Guthram?” persisted Olynka, still looking at the Ubund.

The guide now narrowed his eyes, and then looked at the statue of Guthram. The outcast god was – as was typical in the Empire – shown as a slender bearded man with his arms tucked inside his sleeves, very long earlobes, and a pointed hat. “I think,” he said slowly, ”that after they turned him, Guthram was facing a different way to the rest.”

“Perhaps that’s the pattern!” said Etienne sharply. “He’s an outcast, right? So he goes one way, the rest go the other.”

Olynka was already twisting the stone head of the statue of Forox. “Then the other four all face the opposite way, towards the secret door. Is that roughly where you think it is?” She pointed to a spot on the wall opposite the entrance.

Ubund narrowed his eyes and stared in silence for a moment, and then nodded.

“Good,” said Alcar, beginning to help. He stepped forward and rotated the head of Hernvall, who – unusually in his own experience – was shown as a crowned woman in very skimpy robes, and a holding a trident spear.

Moments later, the friends stood back. All of the statues had now been attended to, but still the secret door had not revealed itself.

“It’s probably very precise,” murmured Alcar, moving towards Guthram again. He positioned himself with the statue in between himself and the main door to the room, and pressed carefully on one side to the other.

“Still nothing?” said Olynka.

Alcar clicked his teeth in frustration. If he could just get the orientation right...

And then, there was a loud click between his hands, and he heard a low scraping noise behind. He spun around to see a section of the wall slide open, revealing an arched corridor that sloped gently downwards.

“We did it!” cried Olynka, raising one fist in the air with an elated grin.